Warhill Baseball Apologizes for ‘Harlem Shake’ Video
Warhill’s baseball players have released a public apology for “inappropriate actions” displayed on a YouTube video that resulted in the team having to forfeit Wednesday’s season opener against York.
The video, in which the players created their own rendition of the popular “Harlem Shake” dance, was published Tuesday after the team’s originally scheduled season opener against York was postponed to Wednesday due to rain.
Lions head coach Joe Henzel said the video was brought to his attention by Warhill High administration first thing Wednesday morning, when the decision was made that the team must forfeit their showdown with the Falcons that afternoon.
Warhill and York enter this season as two of the likely favorites to contend for the Bay Rivers District title.
“I was very upset,” Henzel said of seeing the video. “I get that it’s a trend – you see these videos popping up everywhere now it seems – but my guys allowed it to morph to another level and cross that line of appropriateness. … It didn’t represent our school or our team well, and a message had to be sent that it will not be tolerated.”
Henzel added that, as part of an agreement to prevent further punishment, his team had to remove the original video, admit their wrongdoings, accept responsibility and issue an apology “in a timely manner.”
Wednesday afternoon, the team released another YouTube video titled “Warhill Baseball Harlem Shake,” in which players stood up one by one and apologized for their “inappropriate actions.” The apology video has since been removed from YouTube.
Henzel said the team went with the misleading title in hopes that people searching for the original video would see their apology. He added that as poorly as his team represented the program in this instance, he’s confident that a lesson has been learned and his players will grow from it.
“Today was a day where the kids learned that a lot of people were disappointed in them,” Henzel said. “But like I told the guys, ‘The sun rises again tomorrow and it’s a fresh day.’ … When I accepted this job four years ago, I did so with the mentality of let’s never look back, let’s only look ahead. That needs to be our focus now moving forward.”
Warhill will return to the field Friday when they travel to take on Poquoson.
Posted by Will Armbruster
on March 14, 2013. Filed under Sports.
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the squire
March 14, 2013 at 12:06 pm
And some of us believe, also, that the principal deserves a portion of the responsibility for the action of the students’ team inappropriate tape posted on social media for all to see! Slap the hands of only our students for immature behavior?
Anonymous
March 15, 2013 at 8:09 pm
The principal cannot be blamed for the actions of students. No person can control what another person does. It is the principal’s job to address and fix the situation which, with the help of the coach, he or she did just that. So yes, we should “slap the hands” of ONLY the immature students.
Marc
March 14, 2013 at 8:09 am
As an old fogey, I am not yet acquainted with the Harlem Shake, and whether or not it is totally inappropriate behavior or merely politically incorrect offensive behavior. Notwithstanding this lack of knowledge on my part, I was very impressed with the response and comments made by Coach Joe Henzel. Too often I think, coaches at every level are judged only on win-loss records and not on teaching a team to be better adults as a result of their sports competition, which should be a learning experience. If the team members learn nothing else from this potentially character building experience, I hope they learn well that social media postings are far from the realm of private communication and what seems like an immature and harmless prank today could well cost them a college choice or a job and a livelihood in the future. Go Lions!